Tag: Color Effect

Would you like to know how to create this effect in 5 minutes? Well it is a pretty easy effect to create. This tutorial should give you some ideas on how you can layer color with some photoshop effects to create interesting images for backgrounds or desktops or for use in designs.

Final Color Effect

The image below is the starting point for this effect. It should come of some surprise that we are using this flower graphic. In reality you can use any kind of image with a lot of dark and light areas, so if you want to go ahead and use an image of your choosing. If you download the tutorial file at the end of this tutorial, you will find the same flower image used here. (Flower photographed by me and can be found in larger sizes here: flower graphic).

Original Flower graphic

Open the flower image in Photoshop. To get ready for this tutorial, ensure your Toolbar and Options bar are showing by going to the “Window” menu and then make sure “Tools”, “Options” and “Layers” are checked, meaning they are visible.

In the “Filter” menu go to [Blur->Motion Blur] menu and click “Motion Blur”. Ensure that the “Angle” setting is set to “90” and that the distance setting is set somewhere close to “400”. This will be the base of our final color effect.

Motion Blur

Click the new layer button in the “Layers” palette to create a new layer above the existing one.

Click the new layer blutton on the bottom right

Now that you have a blank layer to work with, ensure the new layer is selected in the layer menu and then go to your toolbar and click the gradient button which looks like this:

After you have clicked the gradient button in the toolbar, click the gradient dropdown in the control bar (Located right below your menu). Click the rainbow gradient on the bottom left of the gradient dropdown.

Gradient dropdown box

Ensure that the layer you created before is still selected. Now drag the mouse from one end of the image to the other end of the image. Your image should look like the image below.

This is How the Gradient should look

Now set the layer’s blending mode to “Overlay” using the blending mode dropdown in the “Layers” pallette as shown below. Then make a third layer in the same way we made a new layer before.

Set the blending mode to "Overlay"

With the third layer selected, go to the “Edit” menu in the main menu and click “Fill”.

Click Fill

The “Fill” dialog will show up. Select “Color” in the “Use:” dropdown. The color picker will pop up, select a black color in the color picker.

The "Fill" window

You will notice that the third layer is filled with black, this is correct. Next click the eraser button in the toolbar. It looks like this:

Once you have clicked the eraser, click the “Brush” dropdown in the control bar as shown below. Set the “Master Diameter” to 400 px and the “Hardness” to 0%. This will give you a large blurred eraser brush.

The Brush Dropdown

Using the eraser, drag along the top part of the black to reveal the image below it. Your image should now look like the image below with the exception of the large circle which indicates the eraser brush.

Your image should now look like this

Finally, set the black layer’s opacity to somewhere around 60%.

Set the layer opacity to 60%

Your image should look like the final image.

You can use these techniques to create many forms of color and look, just alter the image used at the beginning or try a different filter than “Motion Blur”.